No, Townhall has not gone into competition against The Babylon Bee and The Onion. And –best we can tell—neither has Newsweek. Here’s the (seemingly satirical—but actually deadly earnest) proclamation by Newsweek-The Daily Beast from this week:

“Cuba has mobilized its medical corps around the world to distribute a new "wonder drug" that officials there say is capable of treating the new coronavirus despite the United States' strict sanctions that continue to pressure the communist-run island…The drug, called Interferon Alpha-2B Recombinant (IFNrec), is jointly developed by scientists from Cuba and China. Already active in China since January, the Cuban Medical Brigades began deploying to dozens of nations, providing personnel and products such as its new anti-viral drug to battle the disease.”

But wouldn’t you know it? That infernal U.S. “embargo” of Cuba, recently tightened by the Trump team, prevents Castroite Cuba from gifting Uncle Sam with her medical brilliance and limitless generosity, as have been such places as Suriname, Venezuela and Jamaica. To wit:

“Cuba's ambitious anti-pandemic efforts are hindered, however, by decades-long U.S. sanctions that one Cuban official described to Newsweek as "the main obstacle not only to respond to major health crises like COVID-19, but the main obstacle to the country's development at any area."

Now here is how Newsweek/The Daily Beast ends their amazing—(even by Fake News Media standards) article: "Now is the time to demand an end to sanctions that stop Cuba from getting access to the resources it needs to fight this deadly pandemic, both for their own population and for the global beneficiaries of Cuban medical internationalism."

The proclamation/plea quote is from Newsweek’s main source for the article, a Brit Marxist professor named Helen Yaffe, who wrote a tribute to Che Guevara and a tribute to the Castro-regime titled “We Are Cuba!” You will be amazed to learn that she wrote these tracts mostly while in totalitarian Cuba and with the full and gleeful collaboration of the totalitarian regime.

Newsweek/The Daily Beast apparently regards these totalitarian sources as antiseptically reliable. Now when it comes to such sources on coronavirus as the Trump administration and Dr. Anthony Fauci, Newsweek can only scoff, openly and loudly:

As is practically mandatory when quoting the mainstream media on Cuban matters—and has been for over half a century now—let’s consult with Ernesto “Che” Guevara: “Foreign reporters -- preferably American -- were much more valuable to us at that time (1957-59) than any military victory. Much more valuable than recruits for our guerrilla force, were American media recruits to export our propaganda."(Che Guevara, 1959.)

And if you think Newsweek’s penchant for transcribing Castroite propaganda began this week, back in 2011 Newsweek hailed Cuba as among: “The Best Countries in the World,” for its “quality of life.” “Cuba outdoes its fellow middle-income countries in quality of life,” explained the 1993 “National Magazine Award for General Excellence” winner.

Some perspective: Between 200-300 people (out of an average population over the decades of 18 million) died trying to breach the Berlin Wall or otherwise escape East Germany—no runner-up in the “quality-of-life” awards, even by Newsweek standards.

Well, between 65,000 and 80,000 people (out of an average population of 8 million over the decades) have died trying to escape Castro’s Cuba, Newsweek’s “quality-of-life” winner.

But as Che Guevara snickered in his diaries, the U.S. media has never lacked in prime recruits for Cuba’s propagandists.

“Americans could soon be thanking Fidel Castro for their revolutionary cancer drugs,” proclaimed the Washington Post back in 2015. “Cuban immunologists made several other vaccination breakthroughs, including their own vaccines for meningitis B and hepatitis B…All this is even more impressive considering the crippling embargo that America has imposed on the island for half a century."

Cuba-watchers instantly recognize this re-run, and respond with a face-palm. Back in 2004, for instance, Castro claimed to have invented a cancer vaccine. Owing much to the lobbying muscle and ingenuity of his (always-busy) U.S. agents-of-influence, in 2004 this vaccine, represented by a California-based company named Cancer ax, was indeed given an OFAC license for testing in the U.S.

But it never passed FDA approval and CancerVax Corp. went bankrupt. But ah! This hardly meant that Castro’s nomenklatura, and their U.S. lobbyists and business partners suffered any financial reversals. The mere licensing approval by OFAC, you see, meant $6 million for the Castro regime. We have to conclude that the Stalinist regime’s U.S. lobbyists shared in the bounty.

Indeed the Castro regime’s medical swindles are many and varied. The screening of Michael Moore’s Castroite infomercial titled Sicko was a signal for the Stalinist regime’s other propaganda assets to chime in. “Cuba has developed the world’s first meningitis B vaccine, which is available in Third World countries but not in Europe or the United States due to U.S. sanctions,” reported (i.e. dutifully transcribed from Cuban propaganda ministry hand-outs) Anthony Boadle from Reuters’ Havana Bureau shortly after Sicko’s release in 2007.

Of this 27-word sentence by one of the world’s most respected news bureaus exactly 14 words were true. This vaccine was not available in the U.S. and Europe—but hardly because of sanctions. In fact, in 1999, Bill Clinton’s Treasury Department granted the pharmaceutical giant, SmithKline Beecham, a license to market the Cuban vaccine in a joint venture with Castro’s medical ministry—pending FDA approval.

That was 20 years ago. The reason the vaccine is not available today in the U.S. and Europe is simply that—like so many other Castroite concoctions and proclamations dutifully trumpeted by news agencies that earn Havana bureaus and lobbyists who partner with mass-murderers—the vaccine is a farce and its sale a swindle. And, at least in this case, most civilized countries refuse to help propagate the swindle on their citizens.

Some countries discovered the swindle the hard way: “Brazil has wasted $300 million on a Cuban vaccine that is completely ineffective,” wrote Dr. Isaías Raw, director of Sao Paolo’s prestigious Butantan Institute, specializing in biotechnology.

A 1999 study by Brazil’s Centro de Vigilancia Epidemiológica (Center for Epidemiological Research) seconded Dr. Raw: “The studies conducted on the use of the Cuban vaccine in children under four years old—the major risk group for hepatitis B—showed no evidence that the vaccine protected them against the disease. This vaccine should not be recommended.”